Globalization, development and geography - Part II:

Primacy of social protection

Keynote Address delivered by Emeritus Professor M. M. Karunanayake at the Fifth National Geography Conference August, 2012 convened by the Sri Lanka Association of Geographers in collaboration with the Department of Geography at the University of Kelaniya

This is what made it necessary to give emphasis to ‘physical quality of life’ and ‘human development’ as formulated by the United Nations. Another recent UN initiative is ‘social protection’ which is meant to counter situations affecting people's well being in the developing world.

It aims at addressing issues of poverty and their structural causes. Social protection is intended to lift people out of poverty rather than providing passive protection to them against contingencies. Social protection interventions are primarily three-fold, namely, labour market interventions, social insurance and social assistance. However, these interventions are criticized on economic grounds, but there is also the view that economic development and social protection are mutually reinforcing.

Humanitarian objectives

Another goal to which developing countries (including Sri Lanka) are committed is the attainment of Millennium Development Goals. These have been enunciated as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development. We know that Sri Lanka already has a favourable record in addressing some of the issues relating to human poverty.

Despite these development initiatives the world is yet to overcome poverty and guarantee human well being. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 1.2 billion of the world's population live in poverty. ILO estimates that one-half of the world population live without adequate social protection. This is in spite of the fact that very many development actors ranging from organizations under the UN umbrella through aid consortiums, governmental agencies, and international and national NGOs have been active in promoting development. It is also found that there are within country inequalities in development as well. The point at issue is initiatives by the different actors have not been capable of bringing about a transformational change in developing countries. This applies in equal measure to Sri Lanka as well. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask the question what ails development?

A primary reason appears to be that the developing countries have been compelled to follow a hegemonic development paradigm which has taken a one track path to development, ignoring the many possible development paths in a geographically heterogeneous world. This tendency has been further strengthened because of globalism.

A question worth asking is should we talk of ‘development’ or ‘developments'? We know that the development agenda is set in the North and the question has been raised whether developmental theory is a means to promote progress in the North. In fact, it is claimed that in some African countries development under open free market globalization amounts to sheer re-colonization leading to ‘pathological anarchies’ as identified by Falk (1999). In general some of the trade policies followed by the developed countries have also militated against the development of the countries of the South. Restricted trade liberalization, violation of provisions relating to preferential treatment, increasing recourse to contingency measures to exclude imports from developing countries etc. can be cited as examples. Serious concerns have also been raised on the humanitarian objectives of development aid. Development aid is often utilized as a coercive political weapon by the developed countries.

However, the entire blame cannot be placed at the door of the developed countries or international organizations. Development failure is also to be explained among other reasons, by the apathy, lack of commitment to bring about transformational change, and lack of good governance and democracy found in many countries of the South.

Alleviating poverty

In this regard Amartya Sen's (2000) thoughts on ‘development as freedom’ are particularly illuminating. Sen postulated that freedom is both the primary objective as well as the means of development. According to Sen, there are five types of interrelated freedoms that have been enumerated as political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency, and security. The neglect of these freedoms leads to ‘capability deprivation’ which according to Sen is a better measure of poverty than low income. Although our country has been able to make impressive advances in alleviating human poverty, there is no reason for complacency. As true of other developing countries Sri Lanka too has to contend with ‘freedom deficits'. Therefore the question is how we bring about a fundamental change in the Sri Lankan polity.

In dealing with the development role of geography it is useful to revisit the fundamental theoretical bases of geography. Geography may be defined, as a discipline that is concerned with understanding of environmental and social processes and their interrelationships at local to global levels from a spatial and temporal perspective.

In geography the term ‘geographical landscape’ is the synthesized product of the physical and the human landscapes. It provides theoretical coherence to the discipline of geography and helps in the construction of geographical identities basic to an understanding of geographical issues across regions. These identities are built around location, distance, dispersion, flows, movements, cycles, spatial interrelationships and spatial changes. As opined by Anne Buttimer (1976), geography helps to 'grasp the dynamism of the life world'.

We know that there are two forms of dualism in geography. The one is between Physical and Human Geography and the other between Regional and Systematic Geography.

Emmanuel Kant expounded that physical geography should underpin all branches of Geography. Physical geographical studies have been particularly amenable to the application of the scientific method and field observation, measurement, laboratory testing and analysis, form essential methods of investigation of the physical geographer. While physical geography is concerned with the manner in which the physical processes operate, the effects of human agency on these processes is now recognized. The contribution of physical geographers is evident in such fields as geomorphology, biogeography, climatology, hydrology, soil geography etc. In some foreign universities physical geography is so specialized that it is totally divorced from human geography and only taught in the Faculties of Science.

Social values

Over the years human geography has developed many sub-disciplines within it e.g. Social, Cultural, Urban, Economic and Political Geography. There are also sub sub-disciplines that have emerged from within them such as feminist geography, welfare geography and geography of crime.

At the outset human geography was simply defined as a study of man and his relationship to the environment. It was contended that the sum of individual actions based on individual rationality holds the key to the human-environment relationship. It is now recognized that the human-environment relationship is articulated by the collective rationality of people living in society. Hence social values, attitudes and goals and how these interact with the environment they live in have become the essence of human geography. To-day, it is common for human geography to be defined as an interrelationship between society and the environment.

Systematic disciplines

Initially human geography was concerned with the description of the spatial dispersion of human phenomena and therefore, it was not considered as falling within the ambit of the positivist scientific method. This made human geographers to shift to a quantitative approach from around the mid 1960s. However, there has again been a movement back to a qualitative approach, but with a difference. The emphasis now is on ‘meaning’ than on ‘description.’ There is more stress placed on insight and subjective understanding. As pointed out by Ronald F Abler and others (1992) human geography is now concerned with the creation of human identities-class, ethnicity, social groupings, social divisions etc. Quantification is considered one among many approaches to the study of human geography. This methodological reorientation has clearly influenced the manner in which human geographers look at developmental issues, resulting in the adoption of many approaches such as cultural, humanistic, behavioural, and radical.

Regional Geography

In regard to the Regional-Systematic dichotomy, regional geography as defined by Richard Hartshorne had to do with ‘areal differentiation’ with emphasis on the differences between regions. It was found that this definition was out of tune with reality. This made Hartshorne to reformulate the definition to mean the variation of physical and human phenomena over the earth's surface. It is dissatisfaction with Regional Geography that led to the emergence of Systematic Geography. However, since 1980s there has been a resurgence of Regional Geography that deals with spatial variation in a totally different form taking up issues such as social construction of space, sense of place and iconography of landscape etc.

Furthermore, Regional Geography is now studied with focus on geographical problems that enable to highlight the interplay among the varying physical and human geographical phenomena. Systematic geography has branched off into many sub disciplines within physical and human geography; and in recent years into even narrower specializations within sub disciplines. A basic issue concerning present day geography is that Systematic Geographies have moved away from the theoretical core of geography and aligned themselves more with the theory and practice of allied disciplines.

Therefore, there is not a unified geography but ‘fragmented geographies’ across whose boundaries the geographers themselves other than those within the same sub-discipline may not be able to communicate.It must, however, be acknowledged that theoretical in-flows from allied disciplines have vastly enriched the systematic disciplines and there have also been counter flows from the systematic disciplines to the allied disciplines.

Furthermore, the emergence of systematic geography has also seen the opening up of many new areas for geographical analysis and interpretation as made evident in the work of radical, humanistic, cultural and political geographers.

Human phenomena

The development role of geography is enhanced by the range of skills that geographers make use of for spatial analysis. These include field investigations; representation, analysis and interpretation using maps; graphical representations; pictorial representation, and air photographs. More recently Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have come to the fore as an analytical tool of the geographer. Although at the outset GIS applications were used within the bounds of Physical geography (e.g. geomorphology, hydrology, vegetation and land cover) there is increasing use of GIS to analyse the spatial distribution of human phenomena. These trends have vastly improved the potential role of geography in development.

Across the world geographers have contributed to development thinking through their research. It is now seventy years since geography was recognized as a university discipline in Sri Lanka. Over this period there has been a significant contribution to the country's development by both Sri Lankan as well as foreign and expatriate geographers. It is also acknowledged that geographers have made an important contribution to the country's development effort by carrying out commissioned research though such research may not necessarily be considered geographical. Geographers have also made a unique contribution to multi-disciplinary research because of their ability to integrate and synthesize. It is not possible to assess the research contribution of geographers to development within the limits of this address, but some critical comments are in order.

Social responsibility

Sri Lankan geographical research has generally favoured some themes to the neglect of others. Thus there are hardly any studies on themes bearing on political ecology. Spatial spread of geographical research is similarly constrained. Anders Narman (1993) commenting on Development Geography in a wider context found a situation of ‘reality overtaking research’ meaning that some research carried out by geographers may not be of practical relevance. For us this is a thought for self reflection. Furthermore, geographical research at present is often executed within the bounds of systematic disciplines. While specialization within geographies is important, and will no doubt continue with vigour into the future, it is nonetheless important that in dealing with development issues geographers do not lose sight of the vision of an integrated geography. David Stoddart (1987) points out that the leading geographers of the past worked ‘equally and equally successfully across the diversity of land and life’ and laments that for far too many geographers today the ‘central idea of geography - a geography, the geography'- has disappeared.

I would conclude with a final thought. Geography is an applied discipline and has to discharge social responsibility. Geographers have to take up a principled stand on matters of societal importance such as poverty, hunger, social inequalities, unequal power relations etc. and ways to overcome them by influencing public policy. As pointed out by radical geographers’ analysis alone is not enough. We have to make change possible.

Concluded